For the last few decades, most federal funding for sex education has been dedicated to abstinence-only until marriage education. Abstinence-only education has not been shown to reduce teen sexual activity, pregnancy or Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).

In 2008, virtually all reproductive health debates and decisions in the legislative and policy arenas took place against the backdrop of one of the most unforgettable presidential campaigns in history – one in which voters could not have been presented with a starker choice between candidates on reproductive health policy. When the dust had settled, the country had elected a pro-choice, pro-prevention President with a strong track record of support for women’s reproductive health.

Several provisions of federal law prohibit recipients of certain federal funds from coercing individuals in the health care field into participating in actions they find religiously or morally objectionable. These same provisions also prohibit discrimination on the basis of one’s objection to, participation in, or refusal to participate in, specific medical procedures, including abortion or sterilization.

The November 4 election will usher in a decidedly more pro-choice and pro-family planning environment than any in recent memory. Buoyed by the election of a pro-choice President and by a significant influx of Members of Congress who are friendly to reproductive health issues, we have high hopes that the anti-reproductive rights legacy of the past eight years can start to be reversed and that issues that advance a pro-active reproductive health agenda will take their rightful place at the top of the presidential and legislative agendas.

The National Partnership for Women & Families is pleased to submit a statement for today’s hearing in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, “Domestic Abstinence-Only Programs: Assessing the Evidence.” Our statement highlights a few of the reasons – practical, public health, and ethical – to question continuing the public investment in ideologically driven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

As a group of leading scientists who have recently conducted research on adolescents, reproductive health, and abstinence-only education, we are writing to express our strong concern about increasing federal support for abstinence-only education (AOE) programs. This federal support includes monies going to states (Section 510 of the Social Security Act) and those going directly to community and faith-based organizations (the Community-Based Abstinence Education program).

This book is for girls and young women living in North Carolina who are 17 or younger and are pregnant or have a child. If you are one of them, you are not alone. Each year, about 6,300 girls and young women in North Carolina become pregnant or give birth.